Krystal Pure KS15HE Review

The Krystal Pure KS15HE Water Softener is a salt softening system with a very high peak flow rate of 17.5 gpm and a 50,000-grain hardness capacity. These high capacities make it useful for large homes with heavy water usage.

The Krystal Pure KS15HE Water Softener is a salt softening system with a very high peak flow rate of 17.5 gpm and a 50,000-grain hardness capacity. These high capacities make it useful for large homes with heavy water usage.

This whole-house water softener is a salt system that uses a resin bed to remove calcium and magnesium from your water supply. It is designed for use with a water source that has a hardness of 24 to 60 gpg and 1 to 10 parts per million of clear-water iron. The Krystal Pure has two main components, a resin media tank and a salt reservoir. This two-part layout minimizes the chance of salt blocking brine flow during the regeneration cycle. It makes the model a bit bulky, though, because the resin tank is not placed inside the salt reservoir.

The unit has a high peak flow rate of 17.5 gpm and a service flow rate of 12.8 gpm, so it can handle the water use of larger households than many water softeners can. It includes bypass valves and plumbing fittings, but you may need additional connectors to finalize installation.

This water softener's resin bed removes about 50,000 grains of hardness from your water supply before requiring a regeneration cycle. It does not provide any additional water conditioning, such as to improve the water's taste. The salt reservoir holds 150 pounds, and each pound of salt removes about 5,000 grains of hardness from the resin bed during regeneration. The total regeneration cycle lasts 80 to 120 minutes, depending on the hardness load in the resin media.

Unlike saltless water softeners, like the Aquasana Rhino, this Krystal Pure unit requires a wastewater drain for the brine it uses in the regeneration cycle and an electrical connection for a control unit. The control unit allows you to set the time of day and the regeneration start time, which should be a time when your household is not using water, typically the middle of the night.

You can also set the hardness level of your water source. The water softener uses the hardness settings and measured water flow to determine when the resin bed has reached its capacity and schedule a regeneration cycle at the next start time. It also has controls for you to adjust the salt it uses per cycle and its regeneration capacity, plus an option to force an immediate regeneration cycle.

Krystal Pure offers a one-year warranty on all the unit's parts, plus a 15-year warranty on the resin media. The softener tank, brine storage and valve body are covered by a 20-year warranty. If you choose factory installation, the softener media, tank, brine storage and valve body warranties extend to 25 years. This is a very long warranty for a water softener.

The Krystal Pure KS15HE Water Softener has a high service flow rate and a high-capacity resin bed with a large salt reservoir. This water softener system can handle high water usage in most sizes of homes.